THE FACTS

The law provides that a student 16 to 21 years of age (22 years for students with Special Needs) is eligible to enroll in a program offering, upon completion, a regular high school diploma. Legally, one the student reaches the age of 21 or 22, they can no longer remain enroll in the program and at that point, should be recommended to enroll in a GED program. That is why it is essential to capture a student as soon as they drop out of high school. The Project 2nd Chance program and its staff know how to recruit students before the idea of earning a high school diploma becomes nothing but a lost dream or, unfortunately, a self-recrimination of “If only I had studied and stayed in school.”

DIPLOMA VS GED

There is an important difference between a regular high school diploma and a GED. Project 2nd Chance allows students to earns a regular high school diploma, as opposed to the GED offered by most Continuing Education Programs. This is why Project 2nd Chance is an asset to the already existing educational tools in our community. We provide a regular high school diploma to a select group of students at no cost to the student or the sponsoring school district. Together, the school district’s Alternative Educational Program(s) and the Project 2nd Chance program are work in conjunction to provide an educational vehicle for all of the community’s children.

The General Education Development tests (GED) began in 1942 with a battery of tests developed by the US Military for personnel who did not graduate from high school. The tests provided an opportunity for these persons to demonstrate that they had achieved a level of learning usually associated with a high school diploma. Because of this program, many persons were able to qualify for jobs and pursue post-secondary educational opportunities upon discharge from military service.

Over the years the GED program, in several states, was available ONLY to individuals over the age of 21 who had dropped out of high school for “valid” reasons. The GED was never intended to be a solution for dealing with poor attendance or the droves of  teenage students who could not or did not want to continue traditional public high school.